Office Managers, are you and your front desk team spending a majority of your time chasing down dental claims for payment? Between insurance verification and dental claim followup, hours upon HOURS can be spent on the phone waiting for an insurance representative. This ties up the office phone line and takes valuable time away from patients and other high-level management duties. But if you weren’t chasing down dental claims — and doing other tedious dental billing tasks — would you just be answering the phone and scheduling patients? Not even close. We have 10 things you can do instead of chasing down dental claims, and this is only the start!
10 things to do instead of chasing down dental claims
- Set up a referral marketing plan for your patients
Do you currently have an incentive for patients to refer friends and family to your office? The best marketing is word-of-mouth referrals, and patients appreciate when offices see the value of their referral.
- Build your presence on social media
This seems like it should be a low-priority task, but with social media being such a HUGE part of our current culture, building your presence on social media is almost a necessity. Posting giveaways, “before & after” photos, and helpful tips are some good ways to build trust among patients and soon-to-be patients. Maybe even a “Meet the Staff” to highlight your rockstars.
- Set scheduling and production goals
The hard truth is you can’t collect what you don’t produce. Increasing revenue starts with setting production goals and utilizing smart scheduling to reach those goals. Do you have goals set for each month, and are you reaching them? Who do you hold accountable for proper scheduling, handling cancellations, and filling open times in the schedule?
- Implement financial processes for patient treatment
Financial conversations with patients can be tough, but having set financial processes for accountability and transparency can make them easier. If you need a financial agreement to use during treatment plan presentation, we have one here!
- Build a Pre-Appointment Readiness Plan for smooth dental billing processes
Reducing the number of roadblocks in your dental billing processes can seem like an impossible task. It all starts at the beginning by building a rocking Pre-Appointment Readiness Plan. It’s so important, we wrote an entire ebook about it.
- Actively listen and engage with patients during treatment plan presentation
Have you ever felt like you were so pressed for time that you rushed through a treatment plan with a patient? You had claims to call on, statements to send out, and you may even be running on a smaller staff than usual. You aren’t alone. But taking the time to actively listen and engage with your patients during treatment plan presentations can make all the difference in your case acceptance.
- Implement a post-treatment call process
Are you wanting to build deeper relationships with your patients and show them that you truly care? Implement a post-treatment call process for different dental treatment.
Examples:
Extractions: call after 24 hours (1 day)
Root canal: call after 48 hours (2 days)
Filling or crown: call after 72 hours (3 days)
Just a quick check-in call in to see how the patient is feeling after treatment will certainly make deposits in their emotional bank account. But don’t forget about new patients. You can send thank you cards to new patients, signed by the doctor and hygienist.
- Develop a cross-training system for your dental team
The top dental practice teams in the country know that the more each team member knows, the more they can support co-workers, give the best care to patients, and help the practice run smoothly. Need ideas? We have a list of cross-training ideas right here!
- Hold daily morning huddles and monthly team meetings to address roadblocks, celebrate successes, and suggest improvements
Quick, 10-minute morning huddles are a great way to align the entire team at the beginning of the day. If you are feeling like your morning huddles aren’t effective, we suggest grabbing our fillable 10-minute morning huddle template. Monthly team meetings are also a great way to address roadblocks, implement more efficient operational processes, and celebrate wins. You can even set a theme for each meeting — check our suggestions out here!
- Encourage patients to give reviews
This ties into your online presence, but is probably even more important than social media. Potential patients searching for dental care providers in their area will want to go to a practice that is not only well-established but has a history of positive patient feedback.
Need help chasing down dental claims?
You’re not alone. Tedious dental billing tasks like chasing down dental claims doesn’t need to jam up your day. There are so many other high-level things you need to do to keep your dental practice on the path to success. That’s where eAssist Dental Solutions can help. If you need assistants to chase down claims, post payments, send claims, very insurance benefits, field patient balance phones calls, complete the mile-long credentialing paperwork, reconcile the practice bank account with the practice management software (we could go on, but in the interest of time), then you need eAssist Dental Solutions dental billing platform. Click here to schedule a quick consultation.
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